


Time vs Force

by Inkribbon796



Series: Masks and Maladies [79]
Category: Jacksepticeye Fandom, Markiplier fandom - Fandom, Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Background Relationships, Gen, Magic, Time Magic, superhero au, use of music in fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24948655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkribbon796/pseuds/Inkribbon796
Summary: Dark often attacks the heroes, but recently those attacks have been much more persistent, and sometimes repetition and careful planning is all they have.
Series: Masks and Maladies [79]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538131
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Time vs Force

**Author's Note:**

> This would have come out yesterday but I had another migraine attack and took a seven hour nap.

Jackie was running in from a patrol, almost slamming into Nate who was rushing out of the base at full speed. The speedster had felt one of the ripples that J.J created whenever he used his powers and had come sprinting back to the base to see what was wrong. Jackie tried to say hi, but the singer just kept on going until he caught up with Roman down the street, talking with him.

The speedster walked into the lobby to find J.J with his head on the table. Jackie noticed how tired he looked. But tried not to be too worried, J.J tended to bounce between unfailing enthusiasm, and looking like he was going to drop where he stood in an endless sleep.

“Hey, Jay,” Jackie smiled. “Need some coffee?”

The silent hero held up a series of cards and motioned for Jackie to flip through them. The first card read _“No.”_

J.J chuckled. “Should I be worried we’ve had this conversation enough times for you to make these?”

The mute motioned again for Jack to flip to the next card. _“Don’t worry about me. Go and take care of Chase, he makes bad choices today.”_

“Really?” J.J looked at J.J who still had his head on the table. Trying for a joke, and to see how predictable these cards were, he asked, “Hey Jackie, what’dya get when you cross a bean with a—”

He was cut off when J.J flipped him off.

“How bad is it?” Jackie was worried, usually J.J only got this exhausted after using his powers repeatedly, and that was always a bad thing.

_“Go and find Chase, we’ve got enough people at the base,”_ J.J repeatedly, his hands slowing down as if he was trying to enunciate every little hand motion.

“Okay, okay, call me if anything happens,” Jackie set the cards down and after watching Jackie for a bit, he headed back out to check on the rest of the city.

J.J watched him go before trying to take a short nap, which he got a couple minutes in before he was lightly shaken awake by Nate. The singer was sitting on the table, looking a bit tired.

Nate gave a wave.

The mute gave a tired sigh, pulling out his pocket watch as he reached for the cards he’d prepared. _“How long do we have?”_

“Host says maybe fifteen minutes,” Nate shrugged. “If we’re lucky, but he thinks it’ll be closer to ten.”

J.J had an exhausted hollow look on his face as he rubbed at his arms.

Nate let out a sympathetic sigh, “You said the park kinda worked, we could try that again?”

There was a long stretch of silence, where J.J wasn’t signing but he was clearly thinking things through. Nate let him think, trying not to think about how little time they had.

After a bit, J.J lifted his hand and sighed a simple, _“No.”_

“Okay, I’ll get my equipment and make that call,” Nate had other questions but he’d save it for when J.J looked less like he was going to drop into a magical coma.

Nate left a full pot of coffee on the table and gave J.J a reassuring smile before he jogged down into the hanger bay when Anxiety was standing with the Host, the two were talking.

“How we looking?” Nate asked.

Anxiety looked distressed, he was holding a couple notebook papers of notes on how to set up Nate’s equipment, “I woke up ten minutes ago and I’ve literally never done this before.”

“Anxiety has set up Nate’s equipment more than adequately,” the Host announced, he looked like he was in a clean change of bandages.

“Iplier around?” Nate asked.

“The Doctor left with Marvin,” the Host answered.

“How long did that take?” Nate was ready walking over to his guitar and checking it.

“The Host had to lie a bit to get the magician to leave,” the Host smiled. “It was cathartic for the Host to do.”

“Is Mare going to cooperate?” Nate sighed, the singer was playing a couple chords to warm up his fingers.

“Great, it’s got a nickname now?” Anxiety sounded horrified and amazed.

“Demons are touchy like that,” Nate reminded. “Real question is do you want to hang back with Host or up in front with me and Jay?”

“J.J said I was better with you,” Virgil shrugged, looking away. He was already bringing a hand up to start chewing off his fingernails again.

“You’ve got the ability to create nightmares,” Nate reminded pointedly. “I’m making an executive decision, seniority be damned, if you don’t feel comfortable then sit with Host.”

“The Host agrees that Anxiety’s sense of security around the Entity is of vital importance,” the Host agreed, breaking away from his quiet minor narrations.

Virgil breathed in and out deeply, pulling his ring finger away from his teeth. “No, I’ll do it.”

“You sure?” Nate stopped to study him for a bit. “Dark can be a scary guy when he wants to be, there’s no shame in sitting with the Host just because J.J and I are desensitized to demons.”

“You clearly haven’t met Remus,” Virgil tried to joke, standing up.

Nate chuckled a little, but whatever comeback he had was distracted by J.J coming into the hanger with a coffee mug in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other. The singer held out his hand to look at the song list, most of it in his handwriting which always surprised him every time he saw something like this. He had no recollection of writing it, ergo J.J had brought it with him during his jumps.

“Go time then,” Nate tapped it to the floor in front of him, looking at the song choice. The Host nodded and backed up to the wall of the hanger to throw up what looked like an illusion so he could give himself space to work.

Nate started playing the opening to his song, _“The Wrecked and the Worried”_ , starting into the song as his shadow began trying to shoot back as if it was trying to leap out of his body. It hit where the Host was before shooting back towards the Host before the blind orator shot it back towards Nate, effectively locking the Phantom in place until they were done.

Nate kept singing, clearly fighting whatever grab for control the lyrical demon was trying to make before dark lines dragged down Nate’s face from his eyes. The room began to be covered with trees and lined with walls covered in doors. All three of the heroes felt their bodies charged with energy.

“Okay,” Nate called out, looking from J.J to the Host. “He’s willing to play ball but he’s testy. Let’s get this show on the road.”

J.J was doing something with his pocket watch but put it back into his pocket and made a signal towards the Host. After a second the hanger door began to lower. It was barely fully open for a couple seconds before Dark suddenly appeared.

He was looking at the invisible shield around the base, clearly. Sizing it up but not reaching up to touch it.

“Aren’t you all tired of this song and dance,” Dark sighed as if he was bored instead of — as Virgil accurately suspected — absolutely furious. “I know I am and I can’t remember _all_ the times we’ve played this charade.”

“You’re not the only demon here,” Nate warned, always trying to strum or play something so that there was always some music playing, his magic and power energizing his allies around him.

“Oh yes, your little shadow,” Dark scoffs, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “A child even compared to Anti. A true terror, forgive my impertinence.”

Nate’s eyes darkened and he let out a hiss, Nate violently shook his head, the music stopping for a second before Nate started to pick it up again.

“I’m going to remember this next time you and Anti ask for help,” Dark threatened, his eyes traveling the room until he saw Virgil. He grinned at him, something downright evil and twisted. “Ahh, I’d heard you’d lost your mind. Too bad you don’t have that snake to protect you.”

“I don’t need him,” Virgil replied, but without a lot of the strength he had initially tried to have.

“I’m just here to take my enforcers, and be on my way, after burning this miserable place to the ground, of course,” Dark promised.

J.J waved to get Dark’s attention then held up a finger for Dark to hold on for a second before pressing the crown of his pocket watch back in, freeing some of the object from the time loop he’d been holding it into and several large flamethrowers dropped back into reality.

Dark was barely able to pull his aura up in time, mostly because being lit on fire was the last thing he expected, keeping his suit and hair from being singed. As the Host was wrapping them all up in some kind of pocket dimension. It looked like a park that should have had families, but while there were sounds of people and cars in the distance but all of that was conspicuously absent.

Nate started playing _“Feel Good Inc”_ by the Gorillaz. J.J and Nate had been choosing music based on the type of music Dark didn’t like to begrudgingly tolerate, so they used music that Wil was more likely to listen to. Because everyone in the city knew Dark could get unnecessarily uppity about music, and Nate didn’t want to accidentally power Dark up.

“Author,” Dark called out, his tone angry and firm, his aura roiling off of him, “quit hiding behind them and face me!”

The Host’s only response was to use his narrations to summon up some sharp looking rebar poles to try and stab him with it. Dark was able to dodge it, but the message was clear.

Virgil had three pairs of spider legs sprout from his back, spider webs starting to appear from between his fingers and fingertips. It gave him a bit more mobility, and as an added bonus made him feel a bit scarier so he could be brave enough to fight Dark.

Nate’s music cut into Dark’s aura, and while it couldn’t physically harm him on its own, but it was distracting enough to let J.J and Virgil grab whatever the Host summoned in.

The mute hero would occasionally take heavier objects, displace them in time a bit, and leave them as traps to stun Dark with later on.

“You heroes are the bane of my existence,” Dark spat, clearly getting angrier. Nate was slowly transitioning to a new song, trying to keep the pressure on Dark’s aura to keep him from using the full strength of it from ripping J.J and Virgil’s heads off.

The demon had landed more than a couple blows on both of them but it wasn’t as dangerous as if Dark’s was at his full strength.

Virgil was momentarily knocked back, coughing as the air had been knocked out of his lungs. He looked down at his hands to see he had a pair of throwing daggers in his hands.

With the impulsivity 90% of the Sides were all known for, Virgil attached spider thread to the handle and threw it at Dark, almost hitting J.J but catching Dark off guard.

He nicked Dark’s arm, barely a serious injury but it served to piss Dark off even more.

Dark’s ringing became shrill after Virgil pulled the dagger back. They’d gotten him to this point last time before everything had apparently fallen apart because J.J had reset everything again. His normally coal black eyes had changed, his right was red, his left was blue. “You infuriating insect, Anti should have killed you immediately.”

The mute hero just huffed defiantly at Dark which seemed to make him angrier. J.J discreetly pressed on the crown of his pocket watch again and one of the steel rebar bars J.J had frozen appeared and stabbed Dark in the leg.

Dark screamed like a wild, furious animal, ripping the bar out and powderizing it.

“Give me my boys back, they’re mine!” Dark shouted, clearly becoming more and more upset by the second his form seemed to be splitting. “You filthy charlatans don’t get to steal them from me! They’re _mine_ and I will keep coming back as many times as it takes so I can take them from your dead bodies!”

“Now,” the Host’s voice whispered in Virgil’s ear. “His shell is cracking.”

Virgil summoned up as much of his power as he possibly could and directed the most powerful wave of fear he could and it slammed into Dark. Either the demon was so single-mindedly furious at J.J that he either hadn’t cared about Virgil or didn’t see him.

Amplified by Nate’s musical magic, and the Host’s aura, Dark actually paused as if gripped by something.

“I got him?” Virgil realized in shock, trying to keep his fear affects going despite the fact that Dark’s aura was pushing against it, almost like another person trying to push against his pulses. “How’d I get him?”

“Anxiety should concentrate,” the Host told him. “The heroes don’t have long, the Entity is still dangerous when dazed and they will not get a second chance.”

“I’m trying,” Virgil spat.

“Let go,” Dark growled, but in that odd way that people typically did to Virgil’s illusions and not to anyone actually around them. “Let them go.”

J.J began creeping closer, trying to stay as quiet as possible, Dark’s eyes began to track around at something. The Entity let out an animalistic growl.

“I should have known you were hiding behind them,” Dark almost hissing in rage, seemingly getting angrier as he threw his aura in a random direction, almost taking Nate’s head off and slamming into his amp, the echoing of Nate’s magic diminishing and Virgil fought to keep holding the force of nature that was Dark’s aura.

Dark looked around wildly, he grabbed onto J.J who was too close to get away. “No! You don’t get to slither off again! You don’t get to take anything else from me.”

J.J grabbed onto the front of Dark’s suit jacket and as Dark’s was already starting to dig into his skin, the two just vanished.

Slowly the Host brought them out of whatever pocket dimension he’d shoved them into. The three heroes were standing in the garage again, the only damage visible was from the flamethrowers that J.J had dragged in.

“Do you think he’s okay?” Virgil asked, feeling drained now that that Dark and the threat he posed was gone. “Did we win this time?”

J.J walked back toward the base from down the street, looking like he’d been fed through a shredder.

“Jay?” Nate set down his guitar and limped over to him. “I’ll call Schneep.”

J.J raised up a hand to sign something and promptly toppled over and collapsed, almost falling onto his face. Nate was already on his phone, speed dialing Henrik, but Virgil noticed that Nate was clearly trying to fight Mare off now that Dark was gone.

“Natemare separated and escapes before more heroes arrive,” the Host narrated, Mare violently ripped away from Nate, causing the singer to scream and drop to the ground, his phone falling out of his hand. Virgil scooped it up, watching Mare race off with barely a glance at them.

Virgil didn’t understand why he was suddenly so tired and tried to communicate with Schneeplestein who was still in the base and on standby for their fight.

The Host walked over, blood was streaming from underneath his bandages, making them sag on his face. He tried to shield the sight of what his eyes — or lack thereof — looked like underneath his bandages from Virgil. “Jameson should rest, he and the heroes deserve their victory.”

“Is he dying?” Virgil panicked. “What are we going to do?”

“No, and Anxiety should still his troubled heart,” the Host tried to reassure. “All is well, for now.”

“And he’s going to keep coming back?” Virgil spat angrily.

“There is nothing that Anxiety can do to prevent the Entity from returning,” the Host reported.

“What happened in here?” Marvin gasped as Schneeplestein was running in from the base. The magician had suddenly appeared.

“ _Scheiße_!” Henrik shouted in surprise and horror.

“A victory,” the Host was sitting on the ground, trying to shield his face from the others.

“Edvard is going to kill me,” Henrik grumbled, reaching down to help the Host up as Marvin was already trying to use his magic to lift J.J and Nate. Virgil was quick to stand up on his own. “Zeh infirmary vaits. Marvin, help me vit ze ozers.”

“Dr. Schneeplestein does not have to hold the Host’s hand, he is perfectly capable of walking,” the Host stood and dusted his face off. Then he tipped over and almost fell on his face, clearly just as drained as the others but he’d been better at hiding it.

“I vould laugh at you,” Henrik told him. “Ho’ever, Edvard vould kill me.”

As Virgil began flowing the others, Jackie closing up the garage to lock any unwanted guests out, Virgil had an uncomfortable pit in his gut. Dark would be back, and he would only get angrier. It had taken more out of them and next time he might bring help.

The anxious Side couldn’t help but worry. Things had been reasonably good for him, and he was just worried for the next time Dark would swing back around, that the Entity would be back and more dangerous than the last.

**Author's Note:**

> Dark plans on making another attempt the following week. He’s angry and too stubborn to quit. It’s a point of pride for him at this point.
> 
> If the other fics in this series have been unclear: (a strong possibility because I’m the one writing it) J.J has time manipulation powers. Why? I just like the ascetic, and I had to put that kind of power into the hands of a character I trusted. Nate has music based abilities that enhance the abilities and powers of those around him, Mare’s the one who can turn it into a living music video so often enemies get buffed if he’s not careful.


End file.
